🎥 The meaning behind "Lady in the Water"

 The meaning behind "Lady in the Water"

Long ago I came across this excellent analysis of what must be one of the most unappreciated and misunderstood movies of all times - M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water. It was posted on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes boards by a guy with a nickname mjl517. At some point this review disappeared and currently there is no place on Internet where it can be found - so I decided to repost it here. No matter what do you think about Shyamalan or his movies, this is a must-read. Enjoy!

Author: mjl517

Shyamalan warned his audience to keep an open mind while watching this movie. He released a "children's book" to help establish the fantasy before the movie came out. But the complexities of its meaning are hidden behind its "fairy tale" facade. And like all fairy tales, the depth of this masterpiece extends well beyond the simplicity at its surface. If you have the interest, the endurance, AND YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN THIS FILM, please read on.

This is a story of one man’s struggle to regain his faith and sense of purpose by overcoming emotional detachment and repression in the aftermath of an unfathomable tragedy.

First, consider the name of the apartment complex - "The Cove". A cove is a harbor along a body of running water, a sheltered inlet, like a driveway on a busy street. It is a place of seclusion, perhaps even a place to hide. The complex itself is U-shaped, and has a pool at its center. We can imagine that beyond the pool is the reality of the outside world, the “mainstream” of life. It is unknown, and something to be feared. Night has never made a movie that is so contained, so confined to a single location. The story takes place entirely within the Cove.

Now imagine that the Cove is not a physical location at all, but a world that exists only in one man's mind; and it is completely dependent upon and manipulated by his own psyche. People have commented on how the film's location lacks detail, that it is too simple, nondescript, childish, and unrealistic. This is not a flaw - this is by design. Cleveland Heep is its superintendent – its caretaker - its “healer”. And if the Cove is a product of one man's imagination, then its tenants must be as well. Cleveland has a casual familiarity with all of them. And they depend solely upon him for the mundane daily maintenance of their home - we never see his boss or any other employees. Moreover, the name “Heep” itself might reflect not only the great burden he carries, but also the great number of different “tenants” that comprise his psyche. *It is interesting to note that the British use the word “cove” as slang to mean “fellow” or “man”. Similarly, the word “Cleveland” has its roots in Old English, meaning “cliff land”, and the Clevelands were known as people from the cliffs. It is perhaps an allusion to both Cleveland’s isolation and an image of instability, danger, and urgency – “bearing a great burden, teetering on the edge of a cliff”.

In this sense, “The Lady in the Water” is arguably the most unique, imaginative, and ambitious tale of inner conflict and perseverance ever filmed. The struggle takes place within the secluded confines of an apartment complex, the tenants of which are, in this metaphorical sense, the separate, unique aspects of one man's damaged psyche. And each of them has a singular purpose in this fairy tale of faith, hope, and self-awakening. It is "a bedtime story", one of a particular type that we tell each other and ourselves before we sleep. These stories give us hope, comfort, and peace. We call them prayers.

The Cove is a close-knit community, and its tenants all seem to have lived there for some time. In fact, only two characters arrive during the movie's timeline - Story, the mythical narf, and Harry Farber, the movie critic (presumably named after legendary film critic, Manny Farber). And it is no coincidence that they show up at the same time - they are the dueling personifications of Cleveland's consuming inner conflict.

Story represents Cleveland's fractured and fragile faith in himself, in mankind, and in God. She is the hope for, and promise of, the belief in the unknown. Farber, by contrast, is the skeptic in Cleveland. His character is not simply a dig at Night's movie critics. He is the oppressive influence which closes Cleveland’s mind and forces him to see within "the rules", to accept that there is no originality left in the world, and nothing left to hope for. He defines the rules of Cleveland’s perception. Farber's simultaneous arrival represents the saboteur in Cleveland’s mind. He is the embodiment of Cleveland's debilitating doubt, generated to counter the arrival of Story – his savior, the inspiration for his burgeoning faith and redemption of purpose, presumably sent by God. While Story is the image of childlike purity and endless possibility, Farber is the closed, tamed mind of the adult, limited in imagination, and numbed by the sicknesses of society. These are the main figures in the conflict between doubt-skepticism and hope-faith. Note that Farber "must be very good" at his job in order to have been sent to this place from so far away. He is an appropriate counterpart to Story, who turns out to be of the highest and presumably most powerful status of her kind – a "Madam Narf". He is no ordinary critic, she is no ordinary narf. And it is fitting, as both Cleveland’s tragedy and his purpose are extraordinary.

The Cove’s pool is a metaphor for a man’s heart, once again incorporating Night’s connection of purity and innocence with water. Cleveland initially senses Story's presence in flashes - fleeting glimpses and the occasional sounds of splashing from the pool at night. Perhaps he has just enough faith left to recognize it when it is revealed. And he finds it in the pool, as one might find faith in the heart. She arrives naked, not only a reflection of the vulnerability of the fragile faith she represents, but a vision of the freedom and innocence that accompanies the purity of childlike inhibition. Far from able to embrace his faith, Cleveland is discomforted by her nakedness and gives her a shirt. His journal reveals to her the deep sorrow that presumably has led him to this place, and kept him lost from a life of fulfillment as a medical doctor. She reminds him that everyone has a purpose (a profound statement in the context of this story and its location). But watching Cleveland plead with Story to keep his secret from the tenants of the Cove, we witness the active repression of his pain and his debilitating inability to cope with the loss of his family. He cannot allow the separate aspects of his personality (the tenants) to experience the tragedy. Moreover, his crippling stutter (absent in her presence) is symptomatic of what appears to be Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Unable to experience the inspiration, the “awakening” of her presence, he decides to help her complete her task and protect her from the “scrunt” sent to kill her.

Cleveland is guided throughout by the character of Young-Soon, whose mother knows the ancient story behind this narf. Young-Soon is the child aspect of Cleveland’s mind that is willing to believe in fairy tales. Consider that as she translates the story to Cleveland from her mother, the two characters hear the story together for the first time. At one point, she even expresses a hope that the story is true. Her immaturity, her recurring childish exit line "bye, Mr. Heep", and even her name suggest that she is a child (despite her noteworthy height), and thus more amenable to the tales of magic and fantasy that are normally dismissed by adults. Her mother is uncomfortable translating the story in its entirety until Cleveland presents himself to her as a child. But if she is part of the Cove, then so must be the story itself – perhaps heard long ago and buried in the subconscious, perhaps a complete fabrication, or possibly parts of both. It’s not surprising if you can accept that the Cove exists in the mind of a writer. Mrs. Choi is the elderly Korean woman from within the Cove (or invented by it) who becomes the source of this fairy tale. The adult psyche finds it easier to impede the conveyance of the unbelievable story by creating it in a foreign language and from the representation of a respected but unfamiliar source – the perception of a wise and holistic people unbound by Western convention.

The “scrunt” is the manifestation of the ills and evils of society, and the horrors of which man is capable, within Cleveland’s psyche. It is a monstrous form of the fear and anxiety that has denied Cleveland his ability to right his life since his crisis. It preys upon Story. It comes from outside the Cove, from the unknown reality beyond the pool, and it only fears the Tartutic. The Tartutic are the “justice” for which Cleveland cries out when the scrunt attacks Story on the night she should be allowed to leave freely. They might more accurately be thought of as “fate”, or as that which protects the course of predestination. They are the “should”.

The one man who can control the scrunt is the "Guardian". Cleveland’s search for the guardian is the search for that part of himself that is able to face his fear, to "look it in the eye". When he misidentifies this figure as himself and confronts the scrunt, it attacks him. But only the two new arrivals, Story and Farber, appear vulnerable to physical harm by the scrunt. It’s danger to Cleveland’s own character is not actual “death”, but the threat of the reinforcement of his fear and, consequently, his psychological dysfunction. Consider that when Cleveland is about to be attacked by the scrunt, he suddenly awakens (physically unharmed) with Farber standing above him, expressing his displeasure with some movie he has just seen, and arguing against the symbolic purity of water. Also consider that he is standing between Cleveland and the pool at the time, actualizing a metaphor of a man being denied the purity of his heart by his own skepticism and doubt. Cleveland actually credits Farber for having saved him from the scrunt. But Farber was not the savior - he was the trauma, the damage itself - the stifling of Cleveland’s belief, and the reinforcement of his doubt and inability to face his fear once again. It is a powerful crystallization of how Cleveland’s mind works against him.

Vick Ran (Shyamalan, himself), is “the writer inspired by the Story”. His first words to Cleveland – “The light over my desk is still broken.” You can’t write without light, and it’s something Cleveland has been putting off. But a light is not a difficult fix, and Vick does not seem to be in a rush to finish his book. Cleveland sees the book by chance while repairing the light, and initially dismisses its content after observing its title, “The Cookbook”. But he is soon reminded to never judge a book by its cover (how very appropriate).

Vick’s character is at least as important as Cleveland’s. The prediction of his future describes how his book will have a profound philosophical influence on the world, and how this socio-ideological impact would result in his own death. Vick draws an indirect comparison to Martin Luther King within the story itself; and we are reminded of other figures such as Christ, and of other doctrines, or “cookbooks”, such as the Bible. Vick represents the “purpose” that Story assures Cleveland he has not lost. He is the part of Cleveland’s psyche that is capable of accomplishing great things. Such endeavors, however, expose the psyche to harsh and potentially stifling criticism – the “murder” of the creative mind – something of which Night himself has faced, and continues to face, far too much.

Whether writing “The Cookbook” is the literal greatness, or purpose, of which Cleveland is capable, and whether the death of Vick Ran is the literal death of Cleveland Heep, is for the viewer to determine. But it is a reasonable conclusion, if you extend Cleveland’s role as the “healer” to meaning the “healer of mankind”. In this scenario, perhaps the pain of the tragedy he experienced would be the catalyst and inspiration for this doctor to attempt to change the world by writing a book. Conversely, it is conceivable that Vick Ran - the “writer”, the “purpose” - is the true subject of this story. He is the “vessel” of Story’s inspiration, and the only part of himself that Cleveland can correctly identify before being influenced by the skeptical, closed-minded Farber. He shares Cleveland’s sad and quiet demeanor, his self-effacement - "I'm nothing special". He is single (as are just about all of the main players as far as we are aware), but cannot easily care for himself, to cook or clean, and relies on his sister in this domestic capacity. Of course, he would be unaware that he has ever had a wife or children, as would all but two of the other tenants in the Cove, since that information has been repressed, hidden within Cleveland’s "journal". Cleveland Heep, the “healer”, may not actually be the man behind the psyche represented by the Cove, but only that part of the whole that is responsible for its healing. In this case, Cleveland’s task is to heal himself, Vick Ran – the healer of mankind. Therefore, Cleveland’s inability to satisfy this obligation until he, himself - "the healer", is healed is the true meaning behind this story.

In his search for the remaining cast that is necessary for Story to return to the "Blue World" Cleveland seeks the advice of Farber, the man he erroneously identifies as “the person whose opinion he respects”. This path ultimately culminates in a party (a celebration of Farber's arrival, no doubt!). And it is during what is, in essence, this celebration of skepticism and closed-mindedness that Story (Cleveland's faith) is dragged off and nearly killed. The series of misidentifications illustrates not only Cleveland’s detachment - his inability to know himself, but also the destructive process of another symptom of Cleveland's disturbed psyche - self-sabotage. So it is no coincidence that Cleveland cannot complete this task and accept that he is the “healer" (of Story, his faith) until Farber (his skepticism) is killed by the scrunt.

“The Guardian” turns out to be Reggie, who wears the dog tags of a soldier. He is a normal man that is not consumed with, but only partially occupied by, a need for physical strength. After all, Reggie’s true power is ultimately not physical. Reggie is a representation of both Cleveland’s strength and lack of strength. His intentionally one-sided muscular development not only suggests Cleveland’s inability to utilize (or even identify) his inner strength, but also indicates a systematic, “scientific” maintenance of an emotional imbalance and instability.

“The Interpreter” is originally thought to be Mr. Dury because of his proficiency with crossword puzzles. In actuality, the interpreter is his son, Joey. The selection emphasizes the ability of children to see things with a clarity and simplicity that becomes lost for adults as they become limited by social paradigms and restrictions. In fact, Mr. Dury at one point admits that his ability with puzzles and symbolism is limited to his crosswords. The loss of this childhood ability is poignantly illustrated by this father-son disparity - it is Mr. Dury that realizes that his son (presumably the child version of himself - "I'm gonna be just like my dad") is the real interpreter. The idea denotes the endurance of important childlike notions in Cleveland's psyche. It also refers to a psychological healing process that addresses the significance of childhood perceptions, and the subsequent development of emotions and coping strategies during childhood.

"Someone whose opinion Cleveland values" turns out to be the shut-in, Mr. Leeds. He is the only tenant who knows of Cleveland's tragedy (the only other part of his psyche from which it has not been completely repressed). Mr. Leeds "has been here forever". He sits in a dark room, surrounded by books, staring at images of war on television. His role is somewhat paternal - he refers to Cleveland as “son” (“don’t become what I have”), and encourages him to “not give up”. He somehow sees everything that’s going on around him in the Cove. He is Cleveland's conscience, his conviction - what some would consider to be functions of “the Soul”. He is the inner voice, the moral compass that guides him. Even his name is significant. But he is the part of the Cove that has been most affected by the sins of mankind and the toxicity of society - "I wanted to believe more than anyone". In what is essentially inner dialogue, he questions aloud whether man should be saved - and Cleveland answers that he should be. In this moment, Cleveland expresses a desire to live - to be healed, and to rebuild the trust to reattach himself with society.

The "someone with no secrets" is Mr. Bubchik, the man who is unaware that his wife reveals his secrets. He represents the undeniable reality of Cleveland's weakness, his shortcomings, and his mortality. This candidness promotes a sense of honesty and comfort, a willingness to accept oneself despite one’s flaws. Mr. Bubchik represents that which Cleveland has no choice but to accept. And he provides Cleveland the opportunity to relieve himself of the guilt that has accompanied the burden of his secret. He cannot forgive himself for that over which he had no control - the inability to save his family – unless he is able to openly share it with himself.

"The Guild” consists of seven women, a group formed to protect a common interest. The number seven is prominent in religion and mythology – “The Seven Divine Women” (in Khasi mythology), “The Seven Sleeping Men” (in Christian mythology), “The Seven Mothers” (in Hindu mythology), “The Seven Virtues”, “The Seven Sacraments”, and so forth. And a group of women is a representation of Cleveland's burgeoning sense of self worth - the empowerment of that which is generally perceived to be weak and undervalued (this is particularly true in many traditional Hispanic cultures which are known to be excessively misogynistic). The first scene of the movie (a clever foreshadowing) shows Cleveland trying to kill a "big, hairy" bug under the sink of a Hispanic family's apartment. In the background, we see the family's daughters brandishing makeshift weapons and squealing in fear of the bug. They make up five of the Guild's sisters. The others include Anna Ran, Vick's sister (who acts more as a wife or mother to him at times), and Young-Soon, who makes an early reference to her sister who married a dentist, and who is invaluable in guiding Cleveland along his journey of self-awakening. The Guild assists Cleveland through their “laying on of hands” in the climactic scene involving Story's healing and his own catharsis. The image illustrates Cleveland's need for emotional attachment (more typically associated with women and prohibited for men in Western culture) in order to connect with what he has repressed. Conversely, these women who provide emotional aid in this scene are armed and readily patrolling the pool's perimeter in the next. It’s a testament to the power of women to both heal and protect.

The group gathers together to “bring strength to the moment” of Story’s (and Cleveland’s) healing and liberation. It is only then that he is able to reach catharsis. He reveals his tragedy to all aspects of himself, and releases the repressed pain and guilt that have kept him isolated in the Cove. It is at this moment that he is able to heal and embrace his hope and faith once again, leaving it safe and appropriate for the angelic Story to return to the Blue World on the wings of the Great Eatlon. Presumably, God’s angel has fulfilled her task to save a man – indeed, all of mankind (she is the Madam Narf) - and returned to heaven.

Shyamalan has called this his most personal film - an especially significant statement, considering how personal all of his stories have been. In fact, he has referred to them as his “children”. Criticism of “The Village” stripped him of his credibility for his prior three great and well-received productions. So he cast himself as the writer whose inspiration by the Story helps him escape his doubt and heal his faith. Is “The Lady in the Water”, then, the “story” of his healing? Or is it the story that healed him? Or is it both?

This man is portrayed by many as an egomaniac. Yet he has done perhaps the most humble thing imaginable – he’s created a story of amazing depth and value, but he has left it for the viewer to tie together. In this sense, he has created an incredible scenario in which the story is actually critical of the viewer. He writes stories that he would appreciate, and that a select group of the audience (however small) will appreciate. And he allows himself to be bashed for its simplicity and banality by those who can’t appreciate his effort, content that this inability is criticism enough of his critics. Think of this scenario in the context of this movie! It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in entertainment, and I only hope I’ve done it some justice.

📚 Two Babies Talking in the Womb

 In a mother’s womb were two babies.One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

Book: PageBoy by Elliot Page

This world has many ends and beginnings A cycle ends, will something remain? Maybe a spark once so bright will bloom again. —BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND,

“A SONG AND MANY MOONS”

🌲 No Matter Where They Are On Earth, These Trees Lean Toward The Equator

 A few years ago, a group of researchers made a strange discovery: No matter where they are on Earth, Cook pine trees lean toward the equator.

Cook pines (Araucaria columnaris) have a distinct lean to them. In fact, according to the researchers that discovered the equatorial lean, "when grown outside of its native range, this species has a pronounced lean so ubiquitous that it is often used as the identifying characteristic for the species."

Matt Ritter, now director at Cal Poly Plant Conservatory, was writing about the pines for a book when he noticed that the trees he had studied all seemed to lean to the south, New Scientist reported. Ritter began ringing colleagues around the world to see which way their cook pines were leaning, and soon found that they all seemed to be leaning toward the equator.

Ritter and his team measured 256 trees across five continents on a range of latitudes to examine the phenomenon further.

"We demonstrate that the Cook pines’ lean is non-random: trees in the Northern Hemisphere lean south, and those in the Southern Hemisphere lean north," the team wrote in their study. "Additionally, the magnitude of the lean is more pronounced at higher latitudes in both hemispheres."

On average, the trees lean 8.05 degrees toward the equator, but the leans were more pronounced further away from the equator, and only 9 percent of trees moved away from the predicted direction. 

Usually, trees grow vertically in response to the opposing influences of gravity (gravitropism) and light (phototropism).

"The leading hypothesis for the molecular mechanism of gravitropism is that sedimentation of amyloplasts on actin microfilaments activates a signal transduction pathway resulting in asymmetric transport of auxin in the stem, causing it to straighten itself parallel with the gravity vector," the study authors write.

In more competitive or challenging environments, trees may grow in other directions, as they grow toward the available light. While young plants may grow toward the Sun, however, they tend to correct themselves as they grow due to the influence of gravity. It's not clear why cook pines have their distinctive lean, though the team suggests it could be an unhelpful, non-adaptive quirk of their genetics or something else.

"The mechanisms underlying directional lean of Araucaria columnaris may be related to an adaptive tropic response to the incidence angles of annual sunlight, gravity, magnetism, or any combination of these," the team concludes.

"It is interesting that the pronounced lean in A. columnaris is rare in other species, including other Araucaria native to New Caledonia. It is possible that the biophysical constraints of leaning for a tall tree ultimately prevail over any benefits of additional light interception gained by leaning."

The team adds that the phenomenon needs more study, as the "plants are responding to their global environment in a way not yet fully understood."

The study is published in Ecology.

✝️ Swiss church puts ‘AI Jesus’ in confessional

 A parish church in Switzerland has introduced an “experimental art installation” into the confessional in which people can interact with an artificial intelligence program meant to imitate Christ.

“Deus in Machina” image via Katholische Kirche Stadt Luzern

The installation, titled Deus in Machina, was introduced in St. Peter’s Chapel, the oldest Catholic church in the city of Lucerne, in August ahead of the parish’s centenary this month. The installation will culminate in a presentation and discussion of the project’s results to be held on November 27.

According to the parish website, the program was conceived by Philipp Haslbauer and Aljosa Smolic of the Immersive Realities Center at Hochschule Luzern and Marco Schmid, a resident theologian at the parish.

Installed in one of the parish confessionals, people can interact with a hologram representation of Jesus which, according to one user account, addresses users with “Peace be with you, brother” regardless of the sex of the person and encourages them to discuss “whatever is troubling your heart today.”

The program encourages people to “think critically about the boundaries of technology in the context of religion,” according to the team, who have also insisted that putting the installation in a confessional was a practical decision meant to encourage “moments of intimacy” with the hologram, but not meant to suggest Catholics attempt to use the program as a substitute for the sacrament of penance.

According to Schmid, the AI program has been trained in sacred scripture and on theological texts taken from the internet, leaving open the possibility it could offer biblical interpretations or spiritual advice at odds with Church teaching. 

But “in all previous tests, his answers have matched the theological view of St Peter’s church,” Schmid said in an interview with the website Swissinfo.

The parish also has human staff on hand and close to the installation, with whom visitors are encouraged to speak, if they want a more human interaction or to give feedback on the installation. 

Schmidt said that he was not bothered by reports that the program gave “trite,” “clichéd” answers in response to spiritual questions, reportedly reminiscent of a “motivational calendar.”

“I’m glad that the avatar still comes across to a certain extent as a technical object,” he said, stressing it was not meant to replace real human dialogue. “At the same time, the answers it gives are also fascinating. So there’s plenty to talk about when it comes to AI in a religious context.” 

While the installation appears to have garnered some interest at the parish, the decision to use the program to simulate Christ, albeit without pretensions to making it authentically human, let alone divine, is still likely to attract some controversy.

The “experimental art installation” in Lucerne is one of a spate of local Catholic initiatives using artificial intelligence in recent months. 

Last month, a church in Poland debuted what it called the first “nanochapel” in the city of Poznań, in which parishioners can use a special app to access a 24-hour space for prayer and human interaction, but which also comes equipped with an AI "assistant" powered by the ChatGPT program which users can ask questions about the Catholic faith.

In 2023, the developers of Magisterium AI trained an AI robot on a database of 456 Church documents, including Scripture the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Code of Canon Law, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 90 encyclicals, seven apostolic constitutions, and 26 apostolic exhortations.

That project was backed by the rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, who serves as chair of the AI’s “scholarly advisory committee.” 

While the organizers of the “AI Jesus” project have been clear they would not want people mistaking the “installation” for a person, other Catholic AI projects which seek to ape person-to-person interaction have hit significant problems.

In August, Catholic Answers, a San Diego apologetics non-profit, announced that it was pulling its own AI project just days after launching it. 

Featuring avatar-priest character “Fr. Justin,” which was designed to answer questions about the Catholic faith using material from the Catholic Answers library of articles, talks, and apologetics tracts, the program quickly became controversial, with hundreds of Catholics criticizing it online.

Some said the priest avatar was inappropriate, misleading, or just plain creepy. Some said the priest simulated virtual sacraments — indeed, “Fr. Justin” gladly heard a “confession” submitted by The Pillar before attempting to give spiritual guidance and reciting the words of absolution. 

Other critics said that the AI apologetics project leant too heavily into unreliable, controversial, and still-confusing technology.

In October, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences held a conference in Rome to discuss AI and its potential impact and implications for the Church and society. 

That conference followed previous Vatican-sponsored meetings on the subject.

In 2019, the Center for Digital Culture at the Pontifical Council for Culture sponsored discussion groups on AI. The discussions culminated in a book-length study titled “Encountering AI: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations.”

01/12/2005

The radical loser

Hans Magnus Enzensberger looks at the kind of ideological trigger required to ignite the radical loser - whether amok killer, murderer or terrorist - and make him explode

I. The isolated individual

It is difficult to talk about the loser, and it is stupid not to. Stupid because there can be no definitive winner and because each of us, from the megalomaniac Bonaparte to the last beggar on the streets of Calcutta, will meet the same fate. Difficult because to content oneself with this metaphysical banality is to take an easy way out, as it ignores the truly explosive dimension of the problem, the political dimension.

Instead of actually looking into the thousand faces of the loser, sociologists keep to their statistics: median value, standard deviation, normal distribution. It rarely occurs to them that they themselves might be among the losers. Their definitions are like scratching a wound: as Samuel Butler says, the itching and the pain only get worse. One thing is certain: the way humanity has organized itself – "capitalism", "competition", "empire", "globalization" – not only does the number of losers increase every day, but as in any large group, fragmentation soon sets in. In a chaotic, unfathomable process, the cohorts of the inferior, the defeated, the victims separate out. The loser may accept his fate and resign himself; the victim may demand satisfaction; the defeated may begin preparing for the next round. But the radical loser isolates himself, becomes invisible, guards his delusion, saves his energy, and waits for his hour to come.

Those who content themselves with the objective, material criteria, the indices of the economists and the devastating findings of the empiricists, will understand nothing of the true drama of the radical loser. What others think of him – be they rivals or brothers, experts or neighbours, schoolmates, bosses, friends or foes – is not sufficient motivation. The radical loser himself must take an active part, he must tell himself: I am a loser and nothing but a loser. As long as he is not convinced of this, life may treat him badly, he may be poor and powerless, he may know misery and defeat, but he will not become a radical loser until he adopts the judgement of those who consider themselves winners as his own.

Since before the attack on the World Trade Center, political scientists, sociologists and psychologists have been searching in vain for a reliable pattern. Neither poverty nor the experience of political repression alone seem to provide a satisfactory explanation for why young people actively seek out death in a grand bloody finale and aim to take as many people with them as possible. Is there a phenotype that displays the same characteristics down the ages and across all classes and cultures?
No one pays any mind to the radical loser if they do not have to. And the feeling is mutual. As long as he is alone – and he is very much alone – he does not strike out. He appears unobtrusive, silent: a sleeper. But when he does draw attention to himself and enter the statistics, then he sparks consternation bordering on shock. For his very existence reminds the others of how little it would take to put them in his position. One might even assist the loser if only he would just give up. But he has no intention of doing so, and it does not look as if he would be partial to any assistance.

Many professions take the loser as the object of their studies and as the basis for their existence. Social psychologists, social workers, social policy experts, criminologists, therapists and others who do not count themselves among the losers would be out of work without him. But with the best will in the world, the client remains obscure to them: their empathy knows clearly-defined professional bounds. One thing they do know is that the radical loser is hard to get through to and, ultimately, unpredictable. Identifying the one person among the hundreds passing through their offices and surgeries who is prepared to go all the way is more than they are capable of. Maybe they sense that this is not just a social issue that can be repaired by bureaucratic means. For the loser keeps his ideas to himself. That is the trouble. He keeps quiet and waits. He lets nothing show, which is precisely why he is feared. In historical terms, this fear is very old, but today it is more justified than ever. Anyone with the smallest scrap of power within society will at times feel something of the huge destructive energy that lies within the radical loser and which no intervention can neutralize, however well-meaning or serious it might be.

He can explode at any moment. This is the only solution to his problem that he can imagine: a worsening of the evil conditions under which he suffers. The newspapers run stories on him every week: the father of two who killed his wife, his small children and finally himself. Unthinkable! A headline in the local section: A Family Tragedy. Or the man who suddenly barricades himself in his apartment, taking the landlord, who wanted money from him, as his hostage. When the police finally gets to the scene, he starts shooting. He is then said to have "run amok", a word borrowed from the Malayan. He kills an officer before collapsing in the shower of bullets. What triggered this explosion remains unclear. His wife's nagging perhaps, noisy neighbours, an argument at the pub, or the bank cancelling his loan. A disparaging remark from a superior is enough to make the man climb a tower and start firing at anything that moves outside the supermarket, not in spite of but precisely because of the fact that this massacre will accelerate his own end. Where on earth did he get that machine pistol from?

At last, this radical loser – he may be just fifteen and having a hard time with his spots – at last, he is master over life and death. Then, in the newsreader's words, he "dies at his own hands" and the investigators get down to work. They find a few videos, a few confused journal entries. The parents, neighbours, teachers noticed nothing unusual. A few bad grades, for sure, a certain reticence – the boy didn't talk much. But that is no reason to shoot dead a dozen of his schoolmates. The experts deliver their verdicts. Cultural critics bring forth their arguments. Inevitably, they speak of a "debate on values". The search for reasons comes to nothing. Politicians express their dismay. The conclusion is reached that it was an isolated case.

This is correct, since the culprits are always isolated individuals who have found no access to a collective. And it is incorrect, since isolated cases of this kind are becoming more and more frequent. This increase leads one to conclude that there are more and more radical losers. This is due to the so-called "state of things." This might refer equally to the world market or to an insurance company that refuses to pay.

But anyone wishing to understand the radical loser would be well advised to go a little further back. Progress has not put an end to human suffering, but it has changed it in no small way. Over the past two centuries, the more successful societies have fought for and established new rights, new expectations and new demands. They have done away with the notion of an inevitable fate. They have put concepts like human dignity and human rights on the agenda. The have democratized the struggle for recognition and awakened expectations of equality which they are unable to fulfil. And at the same time, they have made sure that inequality is constantly demonstrated to all of the planet's inhabitants round the clock on every television channel. As a result, with every stage of progress, people's capacity for disappointment has increased accordingly.

"Where cultural progress is genuinely successful and ills are cured, this progress is seldom received with enthusiasm," remarks the philosopher Odo Marquard (book): "Instead, they are taken for granted and attention focuses on those ills that remain. And these remaining ills are subject to the law of increasing annoyance. The more negative elements disappear from reality, the more annoying the remaining negative elements become, precisely because of this decrease in numbers."

This is an understatement. For what we are dealing with here is not annoyance, but murderous rage. What the loser is obsessed with is a comparison that never works in his favour. Since the desire for recognition knows no limits, the pain threshold inevitably sinks and the affronts become more and more unbearable. The irritability of the loser increases with every improvement that he notices in the lot of others. The yardstick is never those who are worse off than himself. In his eyes, it is not they who are constantly being insulted, humbled and humiliated, but only ever him, the radical loser.

The question as to why this should be so only adds to his torment. Because it certainly cannot be his own fault. That is inconceivable. Which is why he must find the guilty ones who are responsible for his plight.

But who are these omnipotent, nameless aggressors? Thrown back entirely on his own resources, the answer to this nagging question is beyond the isolated individual. If no ideological program comes to his aid, then his search is unlikely to extend to the wider societal context, looking instead to his immediate surroundings and finding: the unjust superior, the unruly wife, the bad neighbour, the conniving co-worker, the inflexible public official, the doctor who refuses to give him a medical certificate.

But might he not also be facing the machinations of some invisible, anonymous enemy? Then the loser would not need to rely on his own experience: he could fall back on things he heard somewhere. Few people have the gift of inventing a delusion for themselves that fits their needs. Consequently, the loser will most often stick to material that floats freely within society. The threatening powers that are out to get him are not hard to locate. The usual suspects are foreigners, secret services, Communists, Americans, big corporations, politicians, unbelievers. And, almost always, the Jews.

For a while, this kind of delusion may bring the loser relief, but it will not be able to actually pacify him. In the long term, it is hard to assert oneself in the face of a hostile world, and he can never entirely rid himself of the suspicion that there might be a simpler explanation, namely that he is responsible, that his humiliation is his own fault, that he does not merit the esteem he craves, and that his own life is worthless. Psychologists call this affliction "identifying with the aggressor". But what is that supposed to mean? It certainly has no meaning for the loser. But if his own life is worthless, why should he care about the lives of others?

"It's my fault." – "The others are responsible." These two claims are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they reinforce each other. The radical loser is unable to think his way out of this vicious circle, and it constitutes the source of his terrible power.

The only way out of the dilemma is to fuse destruction and self-destruction, aggression and auto-aggression. On the one hand, at the moment of his explosion, the loser for once experiences a feeling of true power. His act allows him to triumph over others by annihilating them. And on the other, he does justice to the reverse of this feeling of power, the suspicion that his own existence might be worthless, by putting an end to it.

As an additional bonus, from the moment he resorts to armed force, the outside world, which has never wanted to know anything about him, takes notice of him. The media make sure he is granted an enormous degree of publicity – even if it is for just 24 hours. Television spreads propaganda for his act, thus encouraging potential imitators. For minors, as shown by events in the United States in particular, the temptation this represents is hard to resist.

The logic of the radical loser cannot be grasped in terms of common sense. Common sense cites the instinct of self-preservation as if it were an unquestionable fact of nature, to be taken for granted. Whereas in fact, it is a fragile notion, quite young in historical terms. Self-preservation is referred to by the Greeks, by Hobbes and Spinoza, but it is not considered as a purely natural drive. Instead, according to Immanuel Kant, "the... first duty of the human individual towards himself in the quality of his animalness is self-preservation in his animal nature." Only in the nineteenth century did this duty become an inviolable fact of natural science. Few deviated from this view. Nietzsche objected that physiologists should avoid, "fixing the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being." But among those who would always rather survive, his words have always fallen on deaf ears.

The history of ideas aside, humanity never seems to have expected individual lives to be treated as the supreme good. All early religions set great store by human sacrifice. Later, martyrs were highly valued. (According to Blaise Pascal's fatal maxim, one should "only believe witnesses who allow themselves to be killed.") In most cultures, heroes acquired fame and honour for their fearlessness in the face of death. Until the mass slaughter of World War I, secondary school pupils had to learn the notorious verse from Horace according to which is sweet and honourable to die for one's fatherland. Others claimed that shipping was necessary, but not staying alive; during the Cold War there were those who shouted "Better dead than red!" And what, under perfectly civilian conditions, are we to think of tightrope walkers, extreme sports, motor racing, polar exploration and other forms of potential suicide?

Clearly, the instinct of self-preservation is not up to much. The remarkable fondness of the human species for suicide, down the ages and across all cultures, is proof enough of this. No taboo and no threat of punishment have been able keep people from taking their own lives. This tendency cannot be quantified. Any attempt to grasp it by means of statistics will fail due to the huge number of unrecorded cases.

Sigmund Freud tried to solve the problem theoretically, on an unstable empirical basis, by developing his concept of the death drive. Freud's hypothesis is expressed more clearly in the familiar old wisdom that situations may arise in which humans prefer a terrible end to (real or imagined) terror without end.


II. The collective

But what happens when the radical loser overcomes his isolation, when he becomes socialized, finds a loser-home, from which he can expect not only understanding but also recognition, a collective of people like himself who welcome him, who need him?

Then, the destructive energy that lies within him is multiplied – his unscrupulousness, his amalgam of death-wish and megalomania – and he is rescued from his powerlessness by a fatal sense of omnipotence.

For this to take place, however, a kind of ideological trigger is required to ignite the radical loser and make him explode. As history shows us, offers of this kind have never been in short supply. Their content is of the least importance. They may be religious or political doctrines, nationalist, communist or racist dogmas – any form of sectarianism, however bigoted, is capable of mobilizing the latent energy of the radical loser.

This applies not only to the rank and file but also to their commanders, whose attraction is based in turn on their own self-definition as obsessive losers. It is precisely the leader's deluded traits in which his followers recognize themselves. He is rightly accused of being cynical and calculating. It is only natural that he should despise his followers. He understands them all too well. He knows they are losers and, finally, he thus considers them worthless. And as Elias Canetti put it half a century ago, he therefore takes pleasure in the idea that if possible, everyone else, including his followers, should meet their death before he himself is hanged or consumed by fire in his bunker.

At this point, alongside many other examples from history, one cannot help being reminded of the National Socialist project in Germany. At the end of the Weimar Republic, large sections of the population saw themselves as losers. The objective data tell a clear story. But the economic crisis and mass unemployment would probably not have been enough to bring Hitler to power. For that to happen, it took propaganda aimed at the subjective factor: the blow dealt to people's pride by the defeat of 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles. Most Germans sought to blame others: the victorious powers, the "global Capitalist-Bolshevist conspiracy" and above all, of course, the eternal scapegoat, Judaism. The tormenting feeling of being in the position of the loser could only be compensated for by pursuing an offensive strategy, by seeking refuge in megalomania. From the outset, the Nazis entertained delusions of world domination. As such, their goals were boundless and non-negotiable. In this sense, they were not only unreal, but also non-political.

Consulting a map was never going to be enough to persuade Hitler and his followers that the struggle of one small European country against the rest of the world was hopeless. On the contrary. The radical loser has no notion of resolving conflicts, of compromise that might involve him in a normal network of interests and defuse his destructive energy. The more hopeless his project, the more fanatically he clings to it. There are grounds to suspect that Hitler and his followers were interested not in victory, but in radicalizing and eternalizing their own status as losers.

Their pent up anger discharged itself in a war of unprecedented destruction against all those others who they blamed for their own defeats. First and foremost, it was a matter of destroying the Jews and the opponents of 1919. But they certainly had no intention of sparing the Germans. Their actual objective was not victory, but elimination, downfall, collective suicide, the terrible end. There is no other explanation for the way the Germans fought on in World War II right to the last pile of rubble in Berlin. Hitler himself confirmed this diagnosis when he said that the German people did not deserve to survive. At a huge cost, he achieved what he wanted – he lost. But the Jews, the Poles, the Russians, the Germans and all the others are still around.

The radical loser has not disappeared either. He is still among us. This is inevitable. On every continent, there are leaders who welcome him with open arms. Except that today, they are very rarely associated with the state. In this field too, privatization has made considerable advances. Although it is governments which have at their disposal the greatest potential for extermination, state crime in the conventional sense is now on the defensive worldwide.

To date, few loser-collectives have operated on a global scale, even if they were able to count on international flows of cash and weapon supplies. But the world is teeming with local groupings whose leaders are referred to as warlords or guerrilla chiefs. Their self-appointed militias and paramilitary gangs like to adorn themselves with the title of a liberation organization or other revolutionary attributes. In some media, they are referred to as rebels, a euphemism that probably flatters them. Shining Path, MLC, RCD, SPLA, ELA, LTTE, LRA, FNL, IRA, LIT, KACH, DHKP, FSLN, UVF, JKLF, ELN, FARC, PLF, GSPC, MILF, NPA, PKK, MODEL, JI, NPA, AUC, CPNML, UDA, GIA, RUF, LVF, SNM, ETA, NLA, PFLP, SPM, LET, ONLF, SSDF, PIJ, JEM, SLA, ANO, SPLMA, RAF, AUM, PGA, ADF, IBDA, ULFA, PLFM, ULFBV, ISYF, LURD, KLO, UPDS, NLFT, ATTF ...

"Left" or "Right", it makes no odds. Each of these armed rabbles calls itself an army, boasts of brigades and commandos, self-importantly issuing bureaucratic communiqués and boastful claims of responsibility, acting as if they were the representatives of "the masses". Being convinced, as radical losers, of the worthlessness of their own lives, they do not care about the lives of anyone else either; any concern for survival is foreign to them. And this applies equally to their opponents, to their own followers, and to those with no involvement whatsoever. They have a penchant for kidnapping and murdering people who are trying to relieve the misery of the region they are terrorizing, shooting aid workers and doctors and burning down every last hospital in the area with a bed or a scalpel – for they have trouble distinguishing between mutilation and self-mutilation.

But none of these mobs has been able to keep up with globalization. In cases where their ideological exploitation focuses on national and ethnic conflicts, this is only natural. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, groups seeing themselves in the tradition of internationalism have forfeited the support of a superpower in terms of propaganda and logistics. Under the pressure of global capital, they have abandoned their fantasies of world domination and now claim only to represent the interests of their local clientele.

Since this cut-off point, only one violent movement has been capable of acting globally – Islamism. It is undertaking a large-scale attempt to siphon off the religious energy of a world faith with around 1.3 billion believers that is not only still very much alive, but which even in purely demographic terms is also expanding on every continent. Although this Umma is subject to much inner fragmentation and badly affected by national and social conflicts, the ideology of Islamism is an ideal means of mobilizing radical losers because of the way it amalgamates religious, political and social motives.

A further promise of success lies in the movement's organizational model. Turning its back on the strict centralism of earlier groupings, it has replaced the omniscient and omnipotent central committee with a flexible network: a highly original innovation that is entirely of its time.

Besides this, however, the Islamists are perfectly happy to plunder the arsenal of their predecessors. It is often overlooked that modern terrorism is a European invention of the nineteenth century. Its most important ancestors came from Czarist Russia, but it can also look back on a long history in Western Europe. In recent times, the left-wing terrorism of the 1970s has proved a source of inspiration, with Islamists borrowing many of its symbols and techniques. The style of their announcements, the use of video recordings, the emblematic significance of the Kalashnikov, even the gestures, body language and dress, all this shows how much they have learned from these western role models.

There is also no mistaking other similarities, such as the fixation with written authorities. The place of Marx and Lenin is taken by the Koran, references are made not to Gramsci but to Sayyid Qutb. Instead of the international proletariat, it takes as its revolutionary subject the Umma, and as its avant-garde and self-appointed representative of the masses it takes not The Party but the widely branching conspiratorial network of Islamist fighters. Although the movement can draw on older rhetorical forms which to outsiders may sound high-flown or big-mouthed, it owes many of its idées fixes to its Communist enemy: history obeys rigid laws, victory is inevitable, deviationists and traitors are to be exposed and then, in fine Leninist tradition, bombarded with ritual insults.

The movement's list of favourite foes is also short on surprises: America, the decadent West, international capital, Zionism. The list is completed by the unbelievers, that is to say the remaining 5.2 billion people on the planet. Not forgetting apostate Muslims who may be found among the Shiites, Ibadhis, Alawites, Zaidites, Ahmadiyyas, Wahhabis, Druze, Sufis, Kharijites, Ishmaelites or other religious communities.


III. The spectacle

In one respect, however, the Islamists are without doubt a twenty-first-century phenomenon: where their understanding of the media is concerned, they leave their predecessors far behind. Earlier disciples of terror also relied on "propaganda through action", but the kind of worldwide attention achieved today by a nebulous grouping like Al Qaida was not granted to them. Trained by television, computer technology, the Internet and advertising, Islamist terror now gets higher viewer ratings than any football World Cup. The all-important massacres are staged in Hollywood-inspired style, modelled on disaster films, splatter movies and science fiction thrillers. This too is evidence of a dependency on the hated West. In the media output of terrorism, the Society of the Spectacle as described by the Situationists comes into its own.

More momentous still, however, is the strategic use of suicide attacks, an invincible weapon that cannot be seen by surveillance satellites and which can be deployed practically anywhere. It is also extremely cheap. In addition to these advantages, this form of terror also exerts an irresistible attraction on the radical loser. It allows him to combine destruction and self-destruction at the same time as acting out both his megalomaniac fantasies and his self-hate. Cowardice is the last thing he can be accused of. The courage that is his hallmark is the courage of despair. His triumph consists in the fact that he can be neither fought nor punished, since he takes care of that himself.

Contrary to what the West appears to believe, the destructive energy of Islamist actions is directed mainly against Muslims. This is not a tactical error, not a case of "collateral damage". In Algeria alone, Islamist terror has cost the lives of at least 50,000 fellow Algerians. Other sources speak of as many as 150,000 murders, although the military and the secret services were also involved. In Iraq and Afghanistan, too, the number of Muslim victims far outstrips the death toll among foreigners. Furthermore, terrorism has been highly detrimental not only to the image of Islam but also to the living conditions of Muslims around the world.

The Islamists are as unconcerned about this as the Nazis were about the downfall of Germany. As the avant-garde of death, they have no regard for the lives of their fellow believers. In the eyes of the Islamists, the fact that most Muslims have no desire to blow themselves and others sky high only goes to show that they deserve no better than to be liquidated themselves. After all, the aim of the radical loser is to make as many other people into losers as possible. As the Islamists see it, the fact that they are in the minority can only be because they are the chosen few.

Experts around the world are not the only ones wondering how the Islamist movement has been able to recruit so many activists with its promises, far outdoing its secular rivals. No clear answer is in sight. All that is clear is that there must be explanations in the history of the Arab civilization that brought forth the world religion of Islam. This civilization reached its apogee at the time of the Caliphate. At this time, it was far superior to Europe in military, economic and cultural terms. The Arab world views this period with misty-eyed nostalgia; even today, 800 years later, it plays a central role in the consciousness of the region. In the intervening period, the power, the prestige, the cultural and economic weight of the Arab world has been in continual decline. Such an unparalleled demise is a puzzle and a sore point, generating an acute sense of loss. The Indian-born Muslim poet Hussain Hali (1837-1914) expressed this in his epic poem The Ebb and Flow of Islam:

"The historians doing research today
whose scientific methods are magnificent,
who plumb the archives of the world
and explore the surface of the earth –
the Arabs fuelled the fire in their hearts,
their rapid gait was learned from the Arabs."

Looking down from this high ground, Hali describes the decline over time, in several stanzas, the last of which reads:

"We are neither trustworthy government officials
nor proud towards courtiers,
we do not earn respect in the sciences,
nor do we excel in crafts and industry."

It is not easy to put oneself in the position of a collective that has experienced such a downfall extending over a period of hundreds of years. No wonder the blame is put on a hostile outside world in the form of the Spaniards, the Crusaders, the Mongols, the Ottomans, the European colonial powers and the American empire. But other societies such as India, China and Korea have suffered no less under the rule of invaders and from the attacks and raids of foreign powers. But in spite of this, they have successfully faced the challenges of modernity and risen to become important players on a global scale. The question therefore inevitably poses itself as to the endogenous causes of the downfall of the Arab world. As long as this question remains unanswered, the Arab world's enormous scientific, technical and industrial deficit will remain unexplained and inexplicable.

The Arab world's sense of pride is hurt not only by military inferiority to the West. Far worse is the impact of intellectual and material dependency. In the last 400 years, not a single noteworthy invention was made by the Arabs. Rudolph Chimelli quotes one Iraqi author as saying: "If an Arab had invented the steam engine in the 18th century, it would not have been built." No historian would contradict him. This means that for any Arab who cares to think about it, the very objects on which everyday life in the Maghreb and the Middle East depends represent an unspoken humiliation – every fridge, every telephone, every power socket, every screwdriver, not to mention hi-tech products. Even the parasitic oil states, frittering away their future security, are obliged to import the technology from abroad; without Western geologists, drilling experts and civil engineers, fleets of tankers and refineries they would not even be capable of exploiting their own resources. In this light, even their wealth is a curse that constantly reminds them of their dependency. Not including the revenue from crude oil, the economic performance of the entire Arab world today counts for less than that of a single Finnish telecommunications company.

The Arab world has proved similarly unproductive where its political institutions are concerned. Imported forms of nationalism and socialism have failed everywhere, and democratic stirrings are routinely nipped in the bud. Of course, blanket statements of this kind can only aim to say something about the state of the whole. They tell us nothing about individual capabilities, that are subject the world over to the genetic normal distribution. But in many Arab countries, anyone who expresses independent ideas puts their own life at risk. Which is why many of the best scientists, engineers, writers and political thinkers live in exile, a brain drain that can certainly be compared with the exodus of Jewish elites from Germany in the 1930s, and which is likely to have similarly far-reaching consequences.

Although the methods of repression that are customary in Arab countries refer back to the traditions of oriental despotism, in this field too, the unbelievers have proved indispensable as teachers. From machine pistols through to poison gas, they invented and exported all of the weapons that have been used in the Arab-Islamic world. Arab rulers also studied and adopted the methods of the GPU and the Gestapo. And of course, Islamist terrorism is also unable to do without such borrowings. Its entire technical arsenal, from explosives to satellite telephones, from aircraft to television cameras, comes from the hated West.

That such an all-encompassing dependency should be experienced as unbearable makes perfect sense. Especially among displaced migrants, regardless of their economic situation, the confrontation with Western civilisation leads to a lasting culture shock. The apparent superabundance of products, opinions, economic and sexual options leads to a double bind of attraction and revulsion, and the abiding memory of the backwardness of one's own culture becomes intolerable. The consequences for one's own sense of self-esteem are clear, as is the urge to compensate by means of conspiracy theories and acts of vengeance. In this situation, many people cannot resist the temptation of the Islamists' offer to punish others for their own failings.

Solutions to the dilemma of the Arab world are of no interest to Islamism, which does not go beyond negation. Strictly speaking, it is a non-political movement, since it makes no negotiable demands. Put bluntly, it would like the majority of the planet's inhabitants, all the unbelievers and apostates, to capitulate or be killed.

This burning desire cannot be fulfilled. The destructive energy of the radical losers is doubtless sufficient to kill thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and to cause lasting damage to the civilization on which they have declared war. One indication of the potential impact of a few dozen human bombs is the level of day-to-day controls that has come to be the norm.

But this is actually the least of the losses to civilization resulting from terrorism. It can create a general atmosphere of fear and trigger counter-reactions based on panic. It boosts the power and influence of the political police, of the secret services, of the arms industry and of private security operatives; it encourages the passing of increasingly repressive laws and leads to the loss of hard-won freedoms. No conspiracy theories are required to understand that there are people who welcome these consequences of terror. There is nothing better than an external enemy with which to justify surveillance and repression. Where this leads is shown by the example of Russian domestic policy.

The Islamists can consider all this a success. But it makes no difference to the actual power relations. Even the spectacular attack on the World Trade Center was not able to shake the supremacy of the United States. The New York Stock Exchange reopened the Monday after the attacks, and the long-term impact on the international financial system and world trade was minimal.

The consequences for Arab societies, on the other hand, are fatal. For the most devastating long-term effects will be born not by the West, but by the religion in whose name the Islamists act. Not just refugees, asylum seekers and migrants will suffer as a result. Beyond any sense of justice, entire peoples will have to pay a huge price for the actions of their self-appointed representatives. The idea that their prospects, which are bad enough as it is, could be improved through terrorism is absurd. History offers no example of a regressive society that stifled its own productive potential being capable of survival in the long term.

The project of the radical loser, as currently seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, consists of organizing the suicide of an entire civilisation. But the likelihood of their succeeding in an unlimited generalization of their death cult is negligible. Their attacks represent a permanent background risk, like ordinary everyday deaths by accident on the streets, to which we have become accustomed.

In a global society that constantly produces new losers, this is something we will have to live with.

*

The article originally appeared in German in Der Spiegel on November 7, 2005.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is one of modern Germany's most interesting and celebrated writers. Among his books of poetry are "The Sinking of the Titanic" and "Mausoleum". His prose works include "Europe, Europe" and "Civil Wars".

Translation: Nicholas Grindell.